Gidday Hooroo
by Kiwikatipo
Summary: What if the transgenics were Aussies? Would Max and Alec then physically consumate their relationship? How things might have gone a little differently in Hello Goodbye. MA
1. Chapter 1

GH1

"**G'day, Hooroo"**

_This story was inspired by Dazedizzy months ago, who said I should parody a sacred M/A Dark Angel episode, she suggested Gill Girl but I thought no. I'll massacre the one dearest to us M/A shippers hearts. This is an alternative universe when Manticore and everything else is Australian._

_Warnings: frequent coarse language, frequent drinking and really unromantic sex._

_Note: **Australians say yeah and hey at the end of their sentences like Canadians and New Zealanders say eh**. Imagine also everyone's voice raising at the end of a sentence especially the women's yeah? When Australians drink they are pissed as in drunk not angry very important to remember that hey**. Pissed equals drunk not angry**._

_Spelling: Australian English "Australians let us all rejoice for we are young and free"_

_Part One Beyond the Black Stump _

_Part One_

In his Sydney inner city basement, Joey the escaped part wallaby freak manufactured by Manticore scratched. An aerosol can labelled "FLEA BOMB" stood nearby.

"Ahh! Bloody fleas!" Joey growled in irritation. Now that autumn was here, the fleas had moved into his basement for warmth. The place Joey liked to do his painting. His tail had amazing artistic talent.

Joey read the aerosol spray can label that Max had got for him: "Press nozzle to activate and run away."

Joey pressed down on the tab, and the can sprayed into his face. He hopped upstairs, leaving the can to continue spraying. In the borer ridden living room, Max stood near a similar can and scratched her leg.

"Did you come a gutser, when you set the bleeding thing off?" Max asked in her nasal Melbourne twang.

After she had escaped from Manticore in '09, Max had gone bush for several years. Living off the land had been monotonous, and so at fifteen she had gone to Melbourne. An intelligent teenager with super human strength and good looks. Naturally, Max had fallen in with street kids and the criminal underworld immediately.

Max had been involved with the Melbourne Gangland community for two years, before coming to Sydney three years ago. Max had decided to make a new start after seeing her gang massacred and had got sick of the freezing winter weather in Melbourne.

Joey nodded bashfully. He'd buggered it up in the basement too right.

"Silly chook." Max scolded him affectionately. Joey hung his head embarrassed.

Max instructed Joey what to do next. Max was obviously going to have to hold his bloody paw all though the bloody thing. "Righto. Let's do the other two cans mate and then run like scalded dingoes, before the buggers eat us alive."

"Righto." Joey hopped off.

Joey went into his kitchen, where another can stood waiting. He and Max held their fingers on the nozzles.

"Hold your breath." Max grinned at him like a maniac. She loved doing stuff like this. "On three mate. One...two...three!"

They started the cans spraying and then ran out onto the veranda, closing the door behind them.

"That was cutting it fine." Max gasped, she slapped Joey on the back. "Good one mate."

"Ta for bringing the...for the bombs." Joey told her gratefully.

"No worries Joey." Max brushed his thanks off. "You're goin' to have to stay out of there for a couple hours."

"Righto. Stay here with little bloke." Joey nodded happily. His wallaby ears twitching.

"Sorry big bloke, I've got to shake my hind leg on this one Joey." Max apologised. "I'm meeting Logo at Smash.

"Shit Maxers." Joey was disappointed.

"I wish you could come. You know that. Tomorrow sport, I'll get some time off from work...No drama."

"Righto," Joey mumbled. He got so lonely and bored, in his abandoned house in Redfern, one of the toughest, slummiest, suburbs in inner city Sydney.

"Flea powder." Max handed him the tin guiltily. "Douse yourself with it before you go back in there, or else you'll be right back where you bloody started. Righto? See ya mate."

"Joey just score some shit to fill in time with Junkie dealer round corner hey?" Joshua complained. "Next time bring Tim Tams. Only chocolate biscuits will make up Maxers leaving early."

Max left swiftly, sick of Joey's guilt trips. She did her best hey. But the part wallaby freak was just whinge, whinge all the bloody time.

Joey sprinkled the entire contents of the flea powder tin over his head.

Part Two

At Smash the popular inner city Sydney pub favoured by the couriers of Shank's Pony round the corner, Macquarie University Students and political activists, Logan Cale was sitting down at a table in the pub scribbling on a beer mat. The handsome journalist millionaire was making notes on a conspiracy theory involving his spunkrat girlfriend Max. Down the left side of the mat was written "Cult powers, FAMILIARS, Ames Black, Wendy 'chosen', 2 nippers killed, Ray, cult." Down the right side of the mat was written "Genetic engineering, MANTICORE, Sandeman, Joey #1, Lydecker, MAX, X5 SERIES." At the bottom, the columns were joined with "MAX IMMUNE?"

"Gidday Logo, this seat taken?" Max flung her self down in front of her scruffy, journo, Clayton's boyfriend, carefully balancing her jug of VB. Max poured herself a beer and gulped it down.

Logan's face lit up on seeing her. Max was as spunksome as ever. Hair tied back in a high pony tail like all Australian women against the heat, very low cut black top, tight blue jeans and black ugg boots. You could never quite pick her ethnic origin. Wog obviously, Greek, Italian, Lebanese it was hard to tell. She was just a beautiful bitzer.

"Gidday Max, how's it going?"

"Good, yourself?" Max smiled back.

"Good you?"

"Good." Max said. "Sorry I'm late Logo. Joey needed my help. What's that?" Max pointed to the beer mat.

'Oh, just trying to connect the dots on this bastard thing." Logan sighed. "Just trying to make bloody sense of it all. Have a squiz see what you think?"

"That's ace, but...here?" Max glanced around Smash dubiously. The pub was crowded with people it being Friday night.

"No one's looking, don't be up yourself. Can I see the cut on your hand for a tick?" Max raised an eyebrow at his sudden death wish. "Hurry up Max." Logan chided her.

Max briefly removed one glove and showed Logan her palm.

"It's fading bloody fast. You said all of Black's cult mates have one?"

"Too bloody right. Right here." Max pointed to her to her forearm. "I saw it when they were saluting their holy snake god, or whatever the fuck it was."

"Looks like a mucked up caduceus, the symbol of medicine hey?" He copied the symbol carefully on the serviette.

"You know what?" Max sighed. "All work and no play makes Logo a bloody boring boy. Stop being such a conch Logo drink up. It's Friday night you wowser."

Alec sat down at the bar and ordered a drink. He glanced down at the other end of the crowded bar and saw an ex-one failed night stand of his Ashleigh talking to a bloke.

Ashleigh tall, blonde, busty a total Skip, she was Alex's usual type that he had wombat encounters with; eats, roots and leaves.

Ashleigh noticed Alec. The two young peoples' eyes dilated.

"I'll talk to you later mate, yeah?" Ashleigh told her companion quietly. They had been plotting to kidnap the Premier of New South Wales but it was now the weekend yeah? The bloke Ashleigh was talking to was playing footy tomorrow and had to leave.

Alec moved and sat down next to Ashleigh.

"How ya going?" Alec inquired, of the blonde, politics student attending Macquarie University. Macquarie was Sydney's most prestigious university. It was also a hotbed of political activism against the oppressive Australian Federal Government.

"Good, you?" Ashleigh sipped her beer. Was Alec going to try and pick her up again, she hoped.

"Good. Haven't seen you in this pub lately," Alec commented, refilling their beers from the jug he had brought over.

"I suppose not. Been arse over tit at Uni this term." Ashleigh explained. Which she had been, what with trying to over throw the government and writing her political science essay on what made Australia finally become a republic in 2012.

"Righto." Alec said paranoid. He had been convinced she had been staying away from Smash because of him. "Wondered if you'd been avoiding me doll?"

Ashleigh shook her head. "No. But I'm bloody glad you couldn't get it up, because you'd been drinking that night."

"Me too Ashleigh." Alec said sincerely, even though it had been bloody embarrassing at the time.

"Probably works for days, hey? Your whole "Life is brief, have to put your heart on the line, doll I want you" speech?

Alec smiled at her nastily. "I was pissed. Ashleigh, you don't want to get involved with me. I was made in a lab hey. I spent my ankle biter years learning the fine art of assassination. There are blokes out there right now looking to cark me, and I'm positive someday they'll probably succeed."

"Don't throw a spaz Alec." Ashleigh sneered contemptuously. "You're just too bloody scared to make a commitment and give a rat's arse about a girl."

"Too right, because the last time I gave a rats arse, some chick from the North Shore got caught in the crossfire and died." Alec though mournfully, of his lovely Rach a year twelve at North Sydney Girls High School when he met her. Dead now at twenty because of him.

"I'm sorry mate, I didn't…" Ashleigh trailed off despairingly.

"Just do yourself a favour, Ashleigh. Leave me the fuck alone." Alec drank more beer trying to forget his tragic past. Transgenics were not immune to alcohol. The founders of Manticore had drawn the line at that, as being inhumane and worse bloody Un-Australian.

"Alec." Ashleigh entreated, to the young, handsome, mouse haired male now ignoring her.

"Rack off." Alec turned back to his schooner of beer.

"I beg your bloody pardon? You came over here dropkick, you fucking rack off!" Ashleigh pointed out indignantly. Who the hell did this dickhead root rat think he was?

Alec went ruefully back to his previous spot, resting on the pub's bar.

Max walked up to the bar, witnessing Alec slink off from Ashleigh.

Max leaned over the bar. "Oi, can I get another jug of beer please mate?" she addressed Gazza the bartender.

Max turned to Alec and raised her eyebrows. Max didn't like Ashleigh much, she was sure the up herself Uni student was trying to crack onto Logan. "Ohmigod, what's Ashleigh got her knickers in a knot over you doing now Alec?

"Why am I always the dip stick bastard with you, Max?" Alec asked his fellow transgenic crossly. He tried so bloody hard with Max, but blow the chances of getting a girl's bloke's virus cured just the one bloody time… Alec didn't get why Max was so up herself with him, and so ace with everyone else in their lives.

"Because you couldn't organise a piss up in a brewery," Max said to him sweetly. "You've obviously stuffed up your chance to crack on to Ashleigh hey?"

"Righto, yeah, 'cause I could be this sensitive wanker and bag myself a really nice girlfriend but, unlike you doll, I'm actually trying to be dinki-di for once."

"And what the fuck does that mean?" Max drank her beer puzzled.

"Mate, you think the only problem you and Logo have is some genetically-engineered virus that'll kill the bloke if you touch him hey?" Alec shook his head, and finished his schooner of beer, refilling it immediately from the jug and topping up Maxers.

"Yeah, that Duxes the list." Max agreed. She drank the foam away from the top of her glass. Christ Alec must be a little pissed already if he was causing foam when he poured beer.

"Mmm." Alec sucked his teeth; Christ Max could be a drongo sometimes. "Max, we don't belong with them. We're dingoes let loose in a sheep pen to them. When are you goin' to finally crack on to that fact?

Max choked on her beer in indignation. "Me and Logo are none of your bloody bizzo."

"Why don't you just take a bloody gander..." Alec began cruelly

"You're just…"Max interrupted him, and then stopped as she saw Logan approaching.

"Gidday Alec how it going?" Logan greeted him.

"Good thanks Logo." Alec said shortly. "You?"

"Good. What's going on?" Logan screwed up his forehead. "You two having a blue?"

Max paused, drank more beer and looked at Logan, "Nothing."

"Yeah. No worries here mate." Alec drained his glass and walked away to play darts with his fellow Shanks Pony friend Sketcho.

"Max?" Logan inquired

"I'm getting too pissed to drive. I'm goin' to ...I'm goin' to go home yeah." Max told him. "Hooroo."

She started to walk away. Logan stepped in front of her angrily. Were she and Alec rooting behind his back?

"What the fuck was that all about hey?" Logan asked her

" Nothing, it was just...I'm getting too pissed to drive home safely, so I need to go before Normo get's up my arse tomorrow morning. For being hungover, and late for bloody work again yeah." Max tried to walk away once more.

Logan grabbed her arm. "Oi!"

Max shook off his hand, horrified. Logan looked at the instant welts appearing on his arm and began feeling a trifle bloody alarmed himself.

The next thing it seemed to Max Logan was lying on the ground, unconscious, pus ridden. Alec and other Smash pub patrons tried desperately to revive him as Max wrung here hand shelplessly. Sketcho rung for an ambulance, fortunately the ambo workers weren't on strike this week and arrived in nine minutes. Alec tried to pat Max on the back as the ambos came in and started worked on Logan with their specialised equipment. Like all Australian males Alec was rendered inarticulate by emotional crisis. The St Johns ambos' took Logan away.

The patrons of Smash were silent as Logan was wheeled awa,y looking down at their beers and then looking across at the publican drying glasses. Everyone started drinking again, once assured by the publican it wasn't the beer that caused Logan to break out like that.

Part Three

In the Royal Albert hospital room, Logan lay unconscious and covered in hives. Max sat in the waiting room trying to concentrate on the Australian Women's Weekly. "_Nicole and Russell_" screamed the headline. "_Are they having it off_?" God Nicole was a slut, poor Danielle, Max thought automatically. She threw the magazine away.

'God are you there mate? It's me Max', she prayed. 'Look I can't give up beer you know that God, and I can't give up shagging either because I don't bloody do it anymore, but let Logan live and I'll visit Joey more or something, please God.'

Dr. Shankar, Logan's physician attempted to get her attention. "Max? Max? You alright, darl?"

"How's he doing?" Max asked tremulously. Dr. Shankar sighed and shook her head.

"Don't let him bloody cark it. Please." Max begged her.

"From what I can tell, the virus is a mutated strain of a biowarfare agent called Zycinor. There's no known cure. Can you sign a waiver form here, here and here." Dr Shankar broke the bad news and held the necessary paper work in front of Max.

"Manticore made us immune to a more of germ-warfare bugs than there are Koala's up a gum tree. I'm pretty sure this is one of them." Max told her as she signed the triplicate papers.

"That'd explain how you can be a carrier and not be affected. You've got antibodies." Dr Shankar said interestedly.

Max looked up with dawning hope. "So what about a transfusion?"

"You'd just reinfect him." The doctor reminded her gently.

"No, not my blood Dr Drongo," Max snapped impatiently. "Another bloody transgenic's."

"It's worth a bloody shot." Dr Shankar exclaimed excitedly. "We've got nothing to lose hey."

Part four

Alec was still going though his round at Smash when his cell phone rang.

"Gidday how's it going Max?" He spoke into the phone, recognising her number.

"Good, you? It's me. I need you to come to the Royal Albert, now." Max instructed him urgently.

"No worries Max, I'll be there in two shakes of a lamb's tail." Alec gave Sketchy some money to cover the rest of his drinks round and ran to the door.

A man sitting at the bar watched him go and then spoke into a hidden microphone.

"He's coming your way Murray mate. Get ready."

As Alec left the pub, he found several policemen pointing guns at him. Alec started to step back toward the door, but the man who alerted the police came out and put a gun to Alec's head.

"Don't even think it Mate. You've been nicked."

Part Five

Meanwhile at the dreaded headquarters of the Un-Australian Ivestigation Unit, Ames Black stepped into a room. Inside, the transgenic Sketcho had seen earlier that week down a sewer, was polishing several pairs of shoes.

"How's it going?" Black asked jovially.

"Good thanks. You?"

"Good. So I hear you're not feeling crook anymore."

"I'm working hard. Doing what the men tell me. What if the union rep finds out I'm doing this job?" The transgenic kept polishing his shoes nervously.

"No worries." White brushed the transgenic's legitimate concern aside. "I've faked a form that puts you under the cleaners and shopkeepers union. I'm not going to hurt you, Wombat."

"My oath. You cut me...and put the bloody snake blood in me and said it would kill me. If that's not bloody hurting me, what is hey?"

"You didn't tell dob me in about that, did you?" White whispered, looking around.

"You think I'd dob?" Wombat was outraged. The marsupial faced transgenic had never been so insulted.

"Sorry yeah. See, I reckoned you were a good bloke hey. I'm sorry I had to do that to you, it was the only way but. Sort of like a...like a test, yeah? Don't worry, you duxed. Remember, though." Black lowered his voice and put his finger to the side of his nose. "We're keeping it on the QT."

Wombat nodded and White left the room.

Part Four

Back at the Royal Albert, Dr. Shankar was preparing to chuck a wobbly. "If we're going to do this, your mate bloody better get here soon."

"He's coming. He knows how up shit creek we are on this." Max felt herself growing white with anger. She had thought she could bloody trust Alec on this one, just bloody once. What kind of useless mate was he? "He's a completely unreliable mongrel."

"Is there anybody else you can get? Because right now this is the only shot Logo has." The Indian doctor said worriedly

"I'll be back yeah." Max ran from the room. It was Skippy to the rescue time.

On his veranda Joey was taking forty winks. A genetically engineered Guide Kangaroo approached and licked Joey's face. Joey laughed, still half-asleep.

The woman holding the kangaroo's harness spoke. "Is someone there?"

Joey woke up and ducked, hiding his face.

"Are you pissed?" the woman said worriedly.

"No, Joey not pissed. Joey has not been drinking amber fluid." Joey told her quickly, seeing the woman was blind.

"Billie's never done this before. She just pulled me off the footpath and up these steps." The women shrugged surprised.

Joey petted the Kangaroo. "Gidday, Billie."

The beautiful indigenous Australian woman smiled. "Guess she just likes you hey?"

Joey was touched, "She helps you."

"She leads me around. Makes sure I'm safe."

"Makes sure you don't knock into things." Joey laughed.

"That's right hey." The beautiful woman chuckled.

The woman proffered her slim brown hand. "I'm Annie. Annie McFisher. I live up the street in the Government Housing Commission Block."

Joey shook her hand "I'm Joey. I'm, uh, from" he started to point to the house, and then thought for a second. Firstly the woman was blind so it was stupid to point and secondly he was meant to be keeping under the radar. "Not...here. Not here. I mean, I'm visiting."

"Oh, from where?" the woman asked pleasantly. He didn't sound Australian.

"Manti." Joey caught himself in time. "coro."

"Mantia Coro." The woman rolled it on her tongue. "Sounds wog."

"In Tahiti." Joey elaborated, bullshitting as he went along. "French Polynesia."

"I'm blind not a thicko. I know where bloody Tahiti is. Your English is very good." Annie bent down and cuddled Billie. Joey wished he was Billie.

"Merci beaucoup" Joey said gallantly.

Annie laughed. "Righto, we should probably be going. Get in behind, Billie. Get in behind."

Joey watched as she walked away. Once at the footpath, she stopped to call back to him.

"It's beaut to meet you, Joey."

"Bonza to meet you too, Annie." Joey called back.

As Annie left, Max pulled up on in her Holden Motorbike.

"Joey! I need your help!" Max held out a bike helmet. "Please, I know you're cranky, but it's for Logo yeah."

Part Five

In the hospital, Max pulled a wheeled stretcher through the hallway. Joey lay on the stretcher covered by a sheet.

Her best friend from work, Olympia Cindolaus a Greek Australian came up to her.

"How's it going darl?" O.C. greeted her.

"Good thanks." Max greeted her best friend, emotionally moved that O.C. was here when Max needed her most, unlike bloody Alec McDowell aka bloody 494. "You?"

"Good. I came as soon as I heard darl." O.C. placed her hand on Max's shoulder comfortingly, running along beside her.

"Gidday O.C. How's it going?" Joey spoke through the sheet.

"Ohmigod. Kangaroo boy? Good thanks Joey, you?"

"Good." Joey spoke muffled from under the sheet.

Max lifted the sheet a little bit to reveal Joey's face.

Max explained quickly. "He has a little...wallaby DNA.

The doctor was briefly taken aback "Righto. Well..., as long as he's got the antibodies. She'll be right Max."

Max dashed into Logan's room. "Just be a tick O.C."

Shortly afterwards, Joey sat by Logan's bedside, transfusing him. He touched Logan's face. Why did Max want to get busy with Logan so much Joey wondered baffled? Any bloody idiot could see Alec was right for her. Manticore matched them better than an episode of _Perfect Match_ for God's sake.

"Logo get better now." Joey smiled comfortingly at Max.

Part Six

At the Rocks Police Station, a woman stood before a two-way mirror, looking into a line up room. The policeman who arrested Alec joined her.

"We're ready when you are, Mrs. Ryan luv." The cop told her supportively.

The grey headed battler nodded. The cop spoke into an intercom.

"Bring them in."

Alec and four other men entered the line up room. One was a Caucasian male in his nineties, the second was a Maori in his forties, the third bloke was Vietnamese and the fourth looked a bit like Alec except he only had one leg.

Mrs Ryan indicated Alec instantly: "That mongrel. He's the one."

Another policeman stepped over to Alec as the other line up men left the room.

"Shit, I've got to be somewhere Constable hey. Can I go now?" Alec was going insane with worry. Logo could die, he could be dead now. This was Alec's big chance to prove to Max he wasn't a dickhead. "What the bloody hell is going on?"

"You've been I.D.'d." the policeman told him.

"For what?" Alec hoped his Andie trading wasn't coming back to kick him up the bum.

"For the murder of Timothy Ryan." The cop sneered. He hated outback serial killers.

Part Seven

At the Royal Albert, Max and O C sat in the hallway. Anxiously waiting to hear if Logan had recovered or not.

O.C. put a comforting arm round her friend. "She'll be right darl. You'll see. Logo's staunch sort of. He's not goin' to kick the bloody bucket Max."

Dr. Shankar emerged from Logan's room. "The antibodies in your friend's blood are neutralizing the virus, keeping it from replicating. He's going to be fine."

"Ohmigod." O.C. squealed. "You hear that? He's goin' to bloody recover."

The two girls hugged for joy.

"Logo's asking for you." Dr Shankar smiled at Max before she walked away quickly to something else she had to attend to urgently.

It was Dr Shankar's tea break after all. There were union rules.

"I can't bloody go in there." Max pulled at her pony tail.

O.C. glanced at her friend surprised. "Ohmigod but he's asking for you, Maxers"

Max put on her jacket and prepared to go. "I can't see him. Not now. Not bloody ever again".

"You're just saying that 'cause you're upset. You heard the doctor, Logo's going to be fine yeah."

"This time. But what about bloody next time hey? No, this has to stop. Tell him I'm glad he's not crook anymore."

Max stood up straight and forced herself to walk away from her ordinary boyfriend.

Max had illegally parked her bike as close to the hospital as possible to get Joey into the Royal Albert hospital. Sydney traffic inspectors were ruthless. They might be slashing the wheels of her Holden with a knife as she walked.

_Glossary:_ Strine: Australian dialect

Geography: Redern is a suburb in Sydney which is a city in the State of New South Wales which is in Australia.

_Drinking words_

Pissed, rat faced, off your face: intoxicated

Claytons: Non alcoholic drink substitute _catchphrase the drink you have when you're not having a drink._

Schooner: glass of beer

Jug: Pitcher

Beer mat: coaster

VB: Victorian Bitter (Melbourne is in the state of Victoria)

_Nature_

Gone bush: lived off the land in Australian outback/ bush Australian countryside

Dingoes: Wolves

Wombat, Wallabys, kangaroos: marsupials

_General_

Shake a hind leg: hurry up, move

Up your self: think you are great for no reason

Bloke:Man

Cark: die

Dux: valedictorian, so duxed comes first

Root: copulate with

DipStick/Drongo: idiot

Gidday: good day or hi

Hooroo: Goodbye

Crook: sick

Skippy: heroic kangaroo children's television hero from the sixties often repeated. Led to the derogatory term Skip: Anglo Celtic Australians by the derogatorily termed Wogs: Mediterranean Australians These are not considered that offensive anymore by most unless you're a bloody Wog or up yourself Skip of course.

Perfect Match: TV series like blind date


	2. Chapter 2

_**Part Two Away with the Pixies**_

At Shanks Pony the next day the inner city Sydney courier firm Max, Alec, O.C. and Sketcho worked at, their boss Howard 'Normo' Johns was getting irate.

"Alec!" The New Australian Labor party supporter yelled, looking around him frantically.

"Alec!" shouted Normo forlornly. "Bazza and Tash, have you dipsticks seen Alec this morning?"

The two couriers shook their heads and Normal walked around looking lost, muttering to himself

"Isn't bloody here, doesn't ring in sick, thinks only of himself, always hurts the one..." Normo spotted Sketcho. "Sketcho you bastard have you seen Alec?"

"Nah, not me mate." Sketcho shrugged. "Been looking for him meself."

Normal raised his voice. "Righto you lot, smoko isn't till eleven so shift your lazy arses. I don't want customers ringing me up on the blower all bloody day, whinging through their arseholes that their parcels went walkabout. And where's Max and her lesbo mate, in the bloody dunny I suppose?"

The two young women in question were indeed in the ladies toilets at Shanks Pony.

Only one toilet was working at the moment. Normal had offended the plumber fixing them and now she was on strike. Picketing outside Shanks Pony with her Trade Union.

"Ohmigod Max, Logo kept asking where you were last night at the Royal. I didn't know what to say yeah."

O.C. was crossing her legs anxiously, trying to have her full bladder win over gravity. All because their junkie workmate Shazza was in the toilet cubicle shooting up.

"Look no worries O.C. it's my problem hey." Max's pager went off. Max looked at it. "Shit."

Shazza emerged her pupils' pinpricks, and lurched forth to start her working day. Fortunately for the motorists and pedestrians of inner city Sydney, Shazza just worked in dispatch.

O.C. dashed in the toilet cubicle. "Ohmigod was that Logo? If you're serious about dumping him, you owe the bloke an explanation." O.C. called through the lavatory door.

"Yeah, yeah. I'll do it during smoko." Max said,

"Oh bloody hell. Shazza you bitch." O.C. yelled after the blonde dispatcher.

Max twisted her hair in a pony tail. "She's gone O.C., did the junkie moll leave her gear on the floor again?"

"It's bloody disgusting, she could use the needle tin lazy slut." O.C. complained.

"Well you're the bloody union rep. Get Normo the tight bastard, to install blue lights so Shazza and the other junkies can't see their disease ridden veins." Max suggested, frowning at her lippy in the mirror, she reapplied it.

"Yeah and then the rest of us can't see properly to apply our make up." O.C. answered.

"Yeah life's a bitch and then you die O.C., hurry up darl I need to go too."

O.C. giggled knowingly. "You're just cranky 'cause you're dumping Logo."

At eleven o'clock on her fifteen minute, union enforced tea break. Max went round the back of Shanks pony and rang Logan on her cell phone.

"Gidday Logo how are you doin'." Max said nervously. Shit she didn't want to do this,

"Good thanks, you?" Logan said cheerfully.

"Good," Max said hesitantly.

"I wandered all over the bloody Royal Albert hospital looking for you last night, with the back of my gown open and my bum hanging out." Logan laughed.

"Sorry about that Logo. Listen… I" Max started her dumping speech. She'd been rehearsing it all morning.

"I'm feeling tickety boo actually. Must be all that transgenic blood." Logan cut her off quickly.

"We need to talk Logo." Max told him.

"I pulled out an old white board I had lying around, and put up all the notes I made at the pub last night yeah?"

Max bit her lip, he knew she was trying to dump him and was delaying the inevitable. "Logan…"

"Bloody don't Maxers please?" Logan pleaded with her.

"I can't bloody do this anymore."

"Look...No worries hey. I'm alive."

"No the two up just went our way this time." Max waved away a fly impatiently. Wasn't it autumn, why was the little winged bastard still alive? "How many miracles do you think we're going to bloody get Logo?"

"It is my bloody life on the line. It's not an issue Max." Logan tried to make light of it.

"What you end up stiff as a door post and I spend the rest of my natural knowing it was my bloody fault? It's over Logo." Max moved out of the way so a striking plumber's urine flow wouldn't splash on her foot, as he pissed on the wall beside her.

The plumber exposed himself slightly and Max sneered, making a 'this small' gesture with her forefinger and thumb.

"I've been where you are, remember doll?" Logan reminded her. "Thinking it was all too bloody hard. But life without you is like a pub with no beer Max pointless, bloody pointless."

"I have to hang up now. My smoko's almost over." Max explained, her eyes narrowed as a junkie off the street came towards her, planning to beg for money from her.

"Max..."Logan begged.

"Just rack off!" Max yelled at the junkie.

"Well shit, be like that then you dog." Logan hung up on her. How rude.

Max banged her head against the wall in frustration.

"Come on doll.' The junkie wheedled. "Just fifty cents hey. It's for me kids. I'm saving up the bus fare for them to come down from Darwin."

"Tell them to walk you fuckwit." Max rushed back inside Shanks Pony pushing her way through the picketing trade unionists and punched in her time card. Max Kelly (she'd chosen her surname after the infamous (in Australia anyway) nineteenth century Victorian bush ranger outlaw Ned Kelly) had clocked in just in time.

Normal frowned. "Cutting it fine as usual Miss Kelly." He leaned over the counter. "Here the _Sydney Swans_ want these new uniforms delivered. Aren't you an AFL Fan? From Melbourne as you are?"

"You know I'm a Ruby Union fan not an aerial ping pong barracker, and you know the _Sydney Swans_ are animals on Andies." Max complained.

"Are they?" Normo smiled patronisingly. "Then you'll want to get there while they're training and before they start drinking." He looked guilty momentarily. "They asked for a female courier and I knew only you could bloody handle them Max."

In a deserted Bondi Beach life saving clubhouse, Black and the Familiar priestess met.

"Gidday how are you going?" Black said to her.

"Good morning, well thank you, yourself?" the priestess replied formally.

"Good, I tested the transgenic but. The bloody thing got sick, but it pulled through"

"Bugger. Then that little moll's survival wasn't just a fluke." The priestess cursed.

"I'm afraid not. Though there is something different about 452. She never exhibited any bloody symptoms."

"What should I tell the Conclave?" the priestess wondered, chewing her fingernail.

"I think it's time to bet on the longshot that Sandeman made the Manticore transgenics immune. This changes everything hey." White looked resolved. "It's time to rattle our dags."

Annie was standing on the veranda at Joey's house, getting up the courage to knock. He opened the door and smiled to see her.

"Gidday Joey?"

"Gidday Annie how are ya going?" Joey asked her.

"Good. It's bloody hilarious. We were just walking past, and Billie just jumped up your steps again. She bloody likes you hey."

"I like her, too." Joey said warmly. Having a good perv at Annie's breasts, secure in the knowledge she couldn't see him doing this.

"She's usually a bloody good judge of character, for a kangaroo." Annie took a deep breath. "I hope I don't seem like a desperate slag, but I wanted to invite you to dinner."

Joey noticed a street kid spray painting graffiti on the milkbar wall on the corner and ducked into his doorway so the destructive little fuck wouldn't see the wallaby freak.

"Are you there?"

"Yeah, I'm here mate, just checking for borer." Joey lied, tapping the doorframe loudly.

"Yeah well these old federation houses are riddled with them yeah? I thought, with you being new to Sydney." Annie lost her nerve." You're probably too bloody busy hey."

"I…I'd love to." Joey stammered. Christ he might get a root out of this.

"What?" Annie couldn't believe her ears.

"Love to have dinner." Joey repeated.

"That's fantastic Joey. There's a Turkish place round the corner. Plonk tastes like goats piss but it's a BYO."

"No, here." Joey tried to think of a reason. "Because I love to cook. Do you like Dim Sims?"

"They're my favourite." She sniffed suspiciously. "Is that meths?"

"Yes. I…I paint." Joshua used methylated spirits to clean his water brushes.

"You're a painter. Oh thank Christ, I was a bit worried you were a derro and drank the stuff."

"No just clean brushes." Joey was intrigued, you could drink meths?

"Fantastic. A painter from Mantia Coro, right here in the filth no go land. I'll see you around seven, righto?

"Righto." Joey smiled sleazily, if he couldn't get his leg and tail over with a blind woman what chance had a part wallaby freak in post pulse Australia?

At Smash that evening Max moped into her beer and O.C. tried to console her.

"Ohmigod, so you did it. You dumped Logo. Good on you darl." O.C. encouraged her.

"Yeah I dumped him." Max sighed, looking at the jugs of beer in front of her. Max planned to drink them all.

Max had had a bitch of a day. She composed a list of the things that had almost made her spit the dummy in her mind.

1. No loo paper in the bog.

2. Delivering a letter to some smelly old age pensioner who insisted paying her ten dollars in five cent pieces.

3. Dumping Logo. Bloody awful.

4. Fending off the _Sydney Swans _manager's advances as she dropped their footy shirts off.

5. Having coffee spilt over her at Maccas at lunchtime by a crazy derro, while Max was trying to gulp down her Aussie burger.

6. Getting caught up in an anti government protest march in Pitt street.

7. Joey being cranky because she'd brought Wagon Wheel biscuits round to his place instead of bloody Tim Tams, then the wallaby freak had insisted she go to the milk bar and buy a packet of frozen dim sims for him

8. She'd had a bicycle puncture in Kings Cross red light district.

Still she'd seen Ashleigh getting squirted with a water cannon by the anti-riot police this arvo, the day hadn't been a total write off.

"That's fantastic darl, good for you." O.C. continued. "You haven't had a root in almost a year now yeah? Come to the rage Druid's housemates are throwing, to celebrate Sky and Bazza not having herpes after all."

"I don't know O.C. I think I'll just stay home, watch the Hugh Jackman marathon on telly." Max piked out.

Sketcho approached the bar and sets five empty jugs on it.

"Gidday girls how's it going?" Sketcho greeted them.

"Good thanks yourself?" they chorused.

"Good, did you hear what happened to Alec? He got nicked outside here by the filth last night hey."

"Ohmigod!" O.C. cried out astounded.

"Who give's a monkey's?" Max removed a long dark hair from her beer, scrutinising it closely. Was it hers or O.C.s or one of the pub employees? Oh who cared? The beer would sterilise any germs.

O.C. frowned at Sketcho. "Don't call the police the filth Sketcho, my brothers a cop yeah."

"Sorry O.C., yeah Gazza the barman here last night, said Alec's still at the Rocks holding cells. Gazza's girlfriend is a cop there. Explains why this place doesn't get raided much hey."

Max sculled her beer. "Fantastic. Hopefully Alec's being buggered whenever he drops the soap in the shower at the moment."

"He's your mate Max." Sketcho said reprovingly. "Wonder what he did hey?"

"Probably one of his little scams went pear shaped." Max said, she watched Sketcho juggle his jugs of beer. "Is that your round?"

"Yeah, you want to join us come over. We're watching the footy. Tri-nations cup's on in ten minutes." Sketcho walked off.

"I wondered why the transgenic dipstick kept ringing me every three hours on the dot." Max refilled her beer glass. "I ignored every one of Alec's calls of course."

"Ohmigod, you're not goin' to not do nothin'?" O.C. was deeply shocked. Alec was their mate.

"Yeah of course I'm going to bloody help him, he's my mate. That's obviously why he didn't come to the Royal last night, but O.C. let the thicko root rat sweat. I'm going to watch the footy first." Max declared firmly drinking more beer.

"Ohmigod, I know you go for the _Wallabies_ in a big way, you bloody Rugby Union fanatic. But you have to shift your arse on this one." O.C. urged her. "Barcode? Exposure? Shit for Alec, shit for you, shit for Joey, a total dunny situation all round."

"Oh fuck no, it's happy hour O.C.," Max whined, she didn't want to leave the pub she'd just bloody got there. "Plus it's versus the _Springboks_ this match hey. You hate the South Africans as much as anyone. Look what they did to you last year yeah."

"I'll tell you the score darl." O.C. promised her.

Max sculled her schooner dry. "I swear, if toilet paper was mechanised, Alec still couldn't wipe his arse without my help."

Max pulled her jacket on grumpily, and kissed her friend goodbye on both cheeks.

At the Rocks police station, a cop escorted a handcuffed Alec into an interrogation room.

Alec looked at Max in astonishment, trying to not let his recognition of her show. Stone the crows, Max was looking daggy. Where had she got that suit, the Salvo's charity reject bin?

"This is McDowell Miss Manion." The constable said.

"Kylie Manion, legal aid. I'm handling this legal abortion." Max pretended to introduce herself to Alec stiffly.

Max turned to the constable. "Please release my client now."

"You bleeding heart pinkos' make me bloody puke." The constable said, undoing Alec's handcuffs.

Alec stood stunned. How come he was getting off?

"Thanks I'll have your badge number if you speak to me like that again Constable." Max said crisply. "You lot stuffed it up, in your eagerness to ensnare my client. Well line ups without consent are illegal in the state of New South Wales still, thank god."

They were? Alec did not know that, how come Max did? Hold on, she was in the Melbourne underworld for two years, yeah she would know that bloody shit whereas he a soldier didn't.

"You know he's as guilty as sin. He's the outback serial killer." The cop told her.

"No he's not." Max said firmly. "P.C.5478 I see."

Max and Alec walked out of the room. "Just walk slowly and don't say anything till we get outside, for once in your bloody life." Max told him.

Alec couldn't work out what she was pissed off about. He was totally innocent. Max obviously believed he was totally bloody innocent. So why was she looking like a kid who just got told Christmas had been cancelled?

"My bikes here." Max showed him, getting out the helmets they were required to wear by law.

She hitched up her skirt and sat on her bike. Alec looked at her legs admiringly he didn't see her in a skirt much. Max looked sourly at him. "Yeah, to rescue you, half of Sydney's had to see my undies, so don't earbash me about it hey."

A policeman came out and looked round urgently.

"Fuck, knew my time was limited till some one found Kylie Manion tied up in the cleaners cupboard. Hold on." Max turned on her ignition key. The bike started and Max and Alec took off.

**Glossary**

I'm sure you've figured out by now to take the O and Y off the end of things first off.

_Appearance related words_

Daggy: frumpy scruffy

Dog: ugly female

_House related words_

Federation housing. House built early 1900's time of australia's federation.

Commission housing: Public housing

Borer: kind of wood worm termite insects

_Sports related words_

AFL, Ruby league, Rugby Union.: Football codes. Ie like soccer and gridiron

Names in italics are actual sports teams the Sydney Swans are complete gentlemen I'm sure (this is fiction set in the future, fiction)

Tri-nations cup Australia, New Zealand and South Africa battle it out to see who is the best rugby playing nation in the Southern Hemisphere "_Let's go All Blacks let's go_!"

Barrack: support your team

_Work related words_

Smoko/ Morning tea/ afternoon tea 15-20 minute breaks before and after lunch

Blower: telephone

Dunny loo bog:toilet

Junkies: there but for the grace of god go I

Anything you don't get PM me

Oh and in 2021 after Hollywood had been wrecked by the pulse and earthquake, people in Australia only see Australian and British programmes and films once more and so stop talking like they're part of the 51st state.


	3. Chapter 3

Part three Beneath the radiant Southern Cross

Max pulled up outside the tower where she and O.C. lived in a shared unit. The tower was going to be luxury housing, but then the Post Pulse global depression had hit and work had stopped on the tower block.

Alec hopped off the back of Max's Holden motorbike. "Is this your digs Max? I don't think I've had the bloody honour before."

"Nah, you haven't been to our unit have you." Max dismounted and smoothed down her skirt. "Well you can be useful for a bleeding change, and help me wheel my Holden upstairs."

"What floor are you?" Alec inquired.

"Five."

"Bloody hell."

"How do you think I keep fit?" Max led the way. They passed O.C. running down the stairs.

"Gidday Alec hows it going?" O.C. asked, the Greek Australian was all dressed up to go out for a night on the tiles.

"Good thanks, you?" Alec grinned, and reached out to remove a price sticker still on O.C.'s brand new posh cardigan.

"Good, so Max bailed you out then?" O.C. checked.

"Nah, he's not here officially O.C. but you have heard Alec got bail, and he's had to leave for Brisbane to visit a sick auntie yeah?" Max instructed her best mate on the cover story Max had worked out for Alec.

"No worries. I'm off to Druid's piss up hey." O.C. told her. "I'm sleeping over at Tash and Bazza's tonight, so don't worry if I'm not here tomorrow. Can you feed my blue tongue lizard please Max, I keep forgetting hey?"

"No worries." Max told her. "Have fun darl."

Alec and Max entered the girls unit. Alec looked out at the amazing view they had of Darling Harbour.

"Fantastic bloody view Maxers! How much is this place costing you?"

"Well at first it was free. Then the filth started shaking us down. Then Logo exposed them and now the City Council charges us Commission Housing rates, I mean nothing's bloody finished here. We have no hot water in the kitchen hey." Max went to the fridge. "We're out of beer, do you want some plonk?"

"Yeah thanks." Alec took the glass of white wine from her and sipped. "Shit, this is as rough as guts."

"So don't bloody drink it then." Max flopped down on the sofa. "Fuck what a shit day."

"My oath, I was sharing a cell with two shemale pre-ops and a steelhead withdrawing from Andies." Alec took a drink of his wine and made a face.

"Remind me to get some snails from outside later and feed O.C.'s lizard." Max drank her wine and she and Alec sat in silence for a while.

"Is something getting you down Max?" Alec said to her. "Bloody hell Logo! How is he mate?"

"Alive, Joey provided a transfusion. So physically he's fine." Max drank from her glass again.

"So youse two will be back in diving gear and gardening gloves doing phone sex then, yeah?" Alec joked. He saw Max's face.

"Something happen with you and Logo?"

"I dumped Logo today, it's over hey." Max admitted.

"What this fortnight?" Alec didn't believe her.

"Nah it's bloody over Alec. I mean it's a bloody Clayton's relationship. I can't touch him. I can't do nothing with him hey."

"That not the only thing but." Alec looked at her. "Thanks for getting my arse out of the Rocks police station by the way."

"Well when I got handed your file and sat down and read it, it was obvious it wasn't you hey. You were in Manticore when Ryan was bumped off. What do you think I'd leave you in there to say 'Gidday' to Ames Black from me? I'm your mate you drongo." Max refilled her wine glass silently. She didn't want to bloody talk about what was going to come next.

"Yeah but the cops said I had a perfect DNA match with the outback serial killer. Struth the guy has completely gone Troppo. I mean the teeth were pulled out of the victim's heads." Alec shuddered in revulsion. "I don't get the perfect DNA match but."

"Ohmigod, Manticore designed us to be Duxes not bloody thickos', it was bloody Ben you pork chop." Max snapped at him.

"Fucking oath! My clone Ben?" Alec smacked his head with his palm. "They told me in Manticore he'd gone Troppo but they didn't go further. Christ do you think I could do that, be a serial killer, be short a few fluffies for the bloody tissue box?"

"You're always short a few fluffies." Max said rudely. She shook her head, thinking out loud. "Well of course I think you could kill someone in cold blood. Bloody hell you're a trained assassin. But nah you're not the serial killer type yeah."

"Ta Maxers that means a lot." Alec told her. "Don't forget to feed O.C.'s lizard."

"Oh shit yeah." Max went to the balcony and grabbed five snails off the wall. She went back in the kitchen and sculled another glass of wine. She was starting to get a good buzz going.

Alec came up behind her watching her. "Max seeing how we're up to our bloody necks in painful subjects this evening, tell me about him would you darl, tell me about Ben."

"When we were kids, back at Manticore, he always wanted bloody answers for everything yeah? Why we were there, what was outside. So he would make up these fantastic stories to explain things. Somehow it made us feel...loved. Like we weren't all alone."

Alec sculled his wine back surprised. When Alec was a kid at Manticore, he had concentrated on learning how to play Rugby Union football and getting in his sections first fifteen.

"Crikey the kid sounds like a total poofter. How come he ended up with kangaroos in loose in the top paddock?"

"After we escaped, it was like there were too many bloody things in this world he didn't have answers for." Max explained.

Max took the snails and smashed them in the sink, peeling their shells off. Blue-tongue lizards liked snails, but the shells scratched their throats. She dropped the deshelled snails in the Blue Lizard's heated class cage.

"I don't know. He just...bloody lost the plot." Max washed her hands and drank more wine. She stared into space remembering.

"Max you okay hey?" Alec asked her.

Max remembered sobbing over Ben's body in the bush outside Sydney, where she had had to kill him.

"Right as rain."

Max leaned against the bench feeling a bit tipsy from the wine, she had drunk so fast. Alec came round and stood next to her.

"Max, what is it darl?" he gently pressed her. Shit he hated it when chicks were upset, he never knew what to do. Alec was a bloody bloke for god's sake.

"We were in the bloody bush. He was hurt. Manticore was closing in on us. He didn't want to go back there." Max opened the fridge to get out and open a new bottle of wine.

"Ruddy reindoctrination. Or worse." Alec nodded understandingly.

"I killed him." Max confessed, pouring herself more wine with shaking hands.

"Bloody hell!" Alec said surprised.

Max started to slur her words, she was getting mildly off her face now, "He asked me to, so I did." Max's voice broke and her eyes filled with tears. "And then I ran like a scalded dingo. I saved myself. And I just left his body there for them to bloody take away."

Tears ran down Max's cheeks. Alec put an arm around her shoulders and kissed the top of her hair.

"Max, I'm bloody sorry hey." Alec told her.

Max put her face in Alec's t-shirt and sobbed away, slightly pissed.

Alec knew from past experience there was only one way to deal with pissed crying women. Culturally he had no other option.

"Darl, stop, stop." He leant down and kissed her on the mouth.

Max wrapped her arms round him frantically. They sank onto the kitchen floor together, pashing desperately.

Alec broke away panting. "Darl we can stop. I don't want to have it off with you, if you're too off your face to know what you're doing hey."

"Nah I'm not that drunk. I've just got a buzz going yeah." Max put her hand on his groin. "For Christ's sake Alec, I haven't had a root in nearly a bloody year."

"Maxer's bad news mate, I've left my wallet with my emergency franger in it, at the Rocks police station, you're probably a 'if it's not on it's not in' kinda chick yeah?"

"Shit! Hold on I'll put my diaphragm in." Max told him. She lurched to her feet unsteadily.

"You seem pissed." Alec observed dubiously. "I don't bloody know Maxers hey."

"No,no darl I'm fine." Max convinced him. She walked along the wooden floorboards lining the kitchen floor. "See straight line darl. Just watch bloody telly or something I'll just be a tick hey."

Alec got off the kitchen floor. He walked into the living room and switched on the telly, as Max dashed into the bathroom.

Max looked in the shared medicine cabinet she shared with O.C. fuck, bloody moisturiser everywhere. God her housemate was slovenly sometimes.

Max pulled tampon packets and perfume bottles aside. Oh fantastic, she had wondered where that tube of mascara had gone.

There was the spermicide cream. Max checked the expiry date. It expired next month should be okay. And at the bottom of the top shelf lay Max's diaphragm case. Fantastic.

Max ran the rubber dome under the bathroom tap checking for holes. Still good, hadn't perished. Max breathed a sigh of relief. Max applied the spermicide cream and took her undies off, now to insert the bloody thing.

Her map of Tazzie was looking beaut. Max had been to the beach with O.C. two days ago, on an unseasonably warm day. Max wore high riding bathers at the beach always.

The slippery diaphragm shot out of her hands and under the sink. Oh bloody hell. Now Max had to wash it and repeat the whole process all over again.

Alec was going to think she had bloody died in here.

Max emerged ten minutes later to a wonderful sight. She leapt onto the sofa and sat beside Alec.

"Oh Alec I can't bloody believe this!"

"I know it's taken me by bloody surprise. Channel Nine operators went on strike earlier this evening, someone's smoko cut short apparently. So this is the delayed coverage of the Tri-nations game.

"God bless industrial bloody action." Max breathed. She gazed entranced as the Wallabies ran across the Johannesburg pitch. "Come on you beauty, come on!"

"Go pick up the ball and run you girls blouse." Alec thumped Max's coffee table in frustration.

"Oh fuck that was in, that was in, the Reffro's blind!" Max screamed frenziedly. "Get your bloody eyes checked mate!"

"Nah, nah penalty kick Maxers." The two transgenics clutched each other excitedly.

'You little ripper!" yelled Alec jumping up excitedly. The Republic of Australia had beaten The Republic of South Africa by twenty seventeen!

Max jumped up in the air beside him. "Aussie, Aussie, Aussie, Oi! Oi! Oi!" they yelled in victory, slapping their palms together.

"I never knew you were into Rugby Union." Max said to him amazed. Alec the annoying pain in her arse, followed the same footy code she did? It was like she had never bloody looked at him properly before.

"Who do you think was running the Shank's Pony pool you little dipstick." Alec told her affectionately. "Manticore designed us for one another darl."

"Oh Alec I've been such a blind drongo!" Max gazed at him, her eyes shining as brightly as the Southern Cross.

"Maxers, do you know how many times I almost pashed you, when I pushed you into a taxi drunk after one of Druid's rages?" Alec confessed. "Remember when you threw up on my shirt, after having those off prawns at Shazza's barbeque and I didn't mind? I love you darl."

"So that's why you didn't root me in the kitchen just then. I thought you were having trouble getting it up again."

"How the hell did you know about that? It happened once! Bloody once hey."

"I overheard Ashleigh talking to her up themselves Uni mates on her cell phone one night at Smash."

"It's only ever been you Max yeah." Alec told her tenderly. He drew her close into a lip locking, tongue duelling, swirling, duet, bloody pash.

Alec picked her up and carried her into the bedroom.

"No Alec! This is O.C.'s room, she'll kill me if we shag on her bed hey." Max cried out alarmed.

Alec picked her up again and carried her into her room. Fuck what a dump, he thought critically, appalled at her clothes strewn everywhere.

This was a trifle unfair to Max. She had hurried home from Smash to look for clothes that she could pretend to be a legal aide worker in. In the end Max had had to raid a St Vincent's charity bin round the corner.

Alec stood her upright and removed the pile of clothes from the bed. He found a vibrator under the covers and stared at it speechlessly for a second.

"It's been nearly a year Alec." Max reminded him, taking the vibrator out of his hand, and throwing it carelessly on the dresser.

"You poor bloody darling." Alec pashed her again, and lowered her onto the bed.

They pulled each others clothes off and flung them across the room. Alec fondled her breasts and worshipped her rosy peaks with his mouth. Max glanced at her radio alarm clock. Ohmigod Alec had spent two minutes and forty seconds on foreplay. 494 was a complete stallion. Max had never been with anyone this sensitive to her womanly needs before.

Alec positioned himself, ready to plunge into her welcoming molten depths.

"Jesus Christ no!" Max repositioned him swiftly. "There darl.'

"Sorry Maxers."

Alec began a powerful yet sensitive, steady rhythm of penetration in her intimate female secret recess with his manly organ of power. Max began to scream out in pleasure with every insertion of his masculine tower of reproduction into her receptacle of fertility.

"Ohmigod, Ohmigod." Max cried out, as waves of ecstasy rippled through her body like surf at Bondi Beach. Was it night, was it day, were his eyes grey and yet blue? Max didn't give a shit.

Hold on what was Alec doing?

'For we are young and free.' Alec lips moved.

Max could read his lips in the dark, with her transgenic vision. "What the bloody hell are you doing 494? Oh Christ don't slow down, Ohmigod!"

"Reciting the bloody national anthem until you come. How close are you Maxers? I don't know how much longer I can hold out." Alec grunted.

His arms were raised taking his weight so he wouldn't squash her. Alec was so bloody good in bed, Max thought admiringly.

"Almost there darl." Max breathed heavily.

'For those who come across the seas, we've endless plains to share.' Alec tried to focus desperately.

"Oh shit! Oh Christ!" Max screamed in his ear.

'In history's page..."

"Oh fuck I'm bloody coming Alec."

"Oh Max shit, I love you darl."

Their mutual climax was like your horse coming in first in the Melbourne cup, in the office pool. It was like catching the perfect wave on your board at Bondi on a Saturday morning. Like a ride on a Gold Coast Amusement park when no little kid had puked on you due to over excitement and too much fairy floss. It was like fireworks over the Sydney Harbour bridge, on Australia day.

They lay in each others arms, stunned by the intensity of what had just taken place between them.

Alec looked into the love of his life's dark eyes. He moved her hair back.

"Max" he told her sincerely, his heart on the line. "That was the best bloody root of my life."

**Glossary**

_Sex stuff_

Have it off, Root: copulate

Franger: condom

Pash: French kiss/snog with tongues

Map of Tassie: woman's pubic hair area. (Look at the map of Australia look at the island of Tasmania at the bottom, get it?)

_Expressions meaning you've gone insane_

Few fluffies short of a tissue box

Troppo meaning gone insane from tropical heat

Few kangaroos loose in the top paddock

_Alcohol_

Off your face, pissed, shit faced: drunk

Tipsy: on your way to getting drunk

Plonk: cheap wine either white or red

_Rugby_

First fifteen: the top rugby team in any organisation that has more than one team usually a school. Because rugby union has a team of fifteen members

Aussie Oi: the annoying chant Australian's do at any sports match against another country. Along with c'mon Aussie c'mon c'mon, c'mon Aussie c'mon c'mon Meaning 'come on Australia' They also screech out 'Waltzing Matilda' off key to drown out the All Black's haka at times, how rude.

_Pet care_

Blue-tongued lizards: I have fed them myself that way – disgusting, they're about as long as an adults forearm.

Anything I've missed PM me.


	4. Chapter 4

Gidday Hooroo Part 4

Quick Glossary Grouse: Good, great.

Part One

The same enchanted evening as Alec confessed his love for Max and Max finally got her first root in nine months, things were happening in Redfern.

Joey had answered the door eagerly to Annie. She was looking all dressed up in her posh frock. Even Billie had a ribbon round her neck.

"Gidevening Joey how's it going?" Annie greeted him warmly.

"Good thanks, you?" Joey looked down Annie's top. She wasn't wearing a bra, so she obviously wanted sex with him tonight.

"Good." Annie replied smiling.

Joey served dinner and he and Annie began chatting away like a pair of Galahs up a lamp post.

"It was an outbreak of measles after the Pulse hit yeah. Everything had come a gutser down in Adelaide where we lived at the time. The only place to get medicine was the black market, and my oldies just didn't have that kind of money. I almost didn't pull through yeah. And when it was over, I was bloody blind hey."

"But you have Billie yeah." Joey consoled her. Joey shook his leg furiously; Billie kept trying to hump it. "Get off of it!" he hissed at the randy Kangaroo.

"Don't be a dipstick Joey, sight or a Genetically Modified Seeing Eye Kangaroo, which would you bloody prefer? She's a good mate but. I still remember what some things look like but. Colours...my mum's expression when she found out we kids wrecked the Hills Hoist clothesline. You're not like most people, hey?

"Umm," Joey mumbled. Shit had Annie caught on to the fact Joey was a transgenic wallaby hybrid?

"What I mean is, sometimes people feel sorry for me yeah. I can hear it in their voices when they talk to me hey." Annie speared her Dim Sim. She hadn't expected just Dim Sims, the lazy bastard could have done a salad to go with it, even if he was foreign. "'Cause I can't do everything they do." This bloke was completely insensitive, what a bloody dip shit.

"You can go out, and you can talk to people. You could go to Smash, and rage, and dance..." Joey urged her , thinking on how bloody bored he got stuck inside Father's house all the bloody time.

"I know. But..." Annie trailed off despondently. She would still like to see, how come this Tahitian drongo didn't get that obvious fact?

Joey shoved a Dim Sim in his mouth with his fingers. "You should do that." He told her with his mouth full.

"Maybe you could come with me hey." Annie suggested unenthusiastically. She drank more wine. She had brought a bottle over, and had been shocked to hear Joey had no other alcohol in the house.

Foreigners were bloody weird. Joey's table manners for a start, sounded utterly revolting. Tonight's meal with its accompanying sound effects, had been one of the few times Annie had been glad she had lost her sight.

Joshua looked down sadly. Go out with this chick and cause car accidents in the street on the way to the nearest pub as Westie bogans' stared? "Maybe."

"I wish I could see your paintings. I'm so bloody curious. I bet they'd tell me everything there is to know about you." Annie sighed hungrily, feeling around on her plate with her fork, no that was it, six bloody Dim Sim's, no salad and apparently no pudding for afters either. Joey was as tight with money as cat's piss.

Joey took Annie across the room to feel his masterpieces by touch, and explain their colours to her.

"Green, like the council issued wheelie bins. And this is brown, like your eyes hey." Joey explained.

"It's grouse, Joey." Annie said trying to be socially polite. What a stupid pointless experience for her, she was blind for Christ's sake. Unless Joey switched to sculpture this was doing nothing for her.

"Thank you." Joey said flattered.

"Nah mate." Annie continued being polite, her Mum had always insisted on good manners. "Thank you."

This was it! Joey thought to himself excitedly, the woman was obviously gagging for it.

Joey grabbed her roughly and stuck his tongue down her throat, pawing her breasts. Joey ripped the bodice of her posh frock accidentally, with his transgenic strength.

Annie kneed him in the groin instinctively. Joey fell to the ground clutching his privates. The wallaby freak chundered on the ground with pain.

"Rack off!" Annie screamed incensed. "What you think I'm going to root you, after six lousy Dim Sims for tea, that obviously came out frozen from a plastic bag?"

"Joey thought so yes." Joey groaned in agony.

"Well you thought wrong. Hooroo." Annie clicked her teeth as a signal for Billie to jump over to her.

The angry young indigenous Australian woman stormed out of the house. Last time Annie was bloody relying on her Seeing Eye Kangaroo to be a good judge of character.

Part Two

The next morning dawned brightly. Some Sydneysiders woke hungover, prepared to start Sunday pledging to give up alcohol. Most were still asleep.

At Blacks headquarters, Wombat lay on a bench. Wombat sat up nervously as Black entered the room.

"How's it going?" Black asked the trembling freak.

"Good, you?" Wombat replied warily.

"Good." Black laughed lightly, rubbing his hands with glee. "Good news mate. You're gettin' out of here."

Part Three

At Logan's flat his carpet was getting trodden down, as Logan paced back and forth agitatedly. Fortunately his carpet pile was made from pre Pulse New Zealand wool and would spring back as soon as he left.

Logan looked at his phone worried, why wasn't Max answering when he rang? Max couldn't mean they were over. They'd been through worse than this, hadn't they?

Logan decided to drive over to her place and see what the hell was going on.

Part Four

Max and Alec walked out of Max's building together holding hands.

"Thanks for agreeing to go over to Joey's today, while I work my penalty rates Sunday shift at Shank's Pony." Max told her lover gratefully. "I really need the money hey."

"No worries, do you think Joey will mind?" Alec checked, releasing her hand reluctantly.

"Are you Troppo he'll love it." Max folded her arms. "Just don't agree to sit for a portrait for him again hey. Then you have to pretend you like the bloody thing afterwards."

"Well, thanks for saving my arse, again darl. Must be hard, hey? Having me around? Some bloke with Ben's face, making you think about things you'd rather forget?"

Max shook her head laughing. "Nah, I was just a bitch to you, because I was sexually frustrated from not having had a root for nearly a year hey."

"Righto." Alec cocked his head cheekily and smirked at her lovingly.

Logan got out of his car slamming the door. Bloody hell Logan was going to get it cleared up with Max once and for bloody all. He headed towards the building determinedly. Logan spotted Max and Alec outside of her building together and stopped stunned. It was eight in the morning, they had obviously spent the night together.

"I thought you got stroppy with me because I'm such a pain in the bum sometimes." Alec winked.

The transgenic male pulled his darling close and lovingly pashed his perfect transgenic match. Max sank against the wire netting fence beside her building. Alec leant over her. Slowly Alec put his hand up her t-shirt. The gently pashing couple almost bumping their heads on the old sign that told passers-by the fence complied with New South Wales safety standards.

"Give her one for me mate." A passing bogan motorist in a Ford Falcon yelled at them crudely.

Max pushed Alec away laughing. "You are bloody terrible Alec."

"Have a good day Maxers." Alec waved to her, as he walked backwards down the street.

"Be careful, darl." Max blew him a kiss,

Alec blew her kiss too. "Always yeah."

Feeling like he had been punched in the guts Logan lurched back to his car. No it couldn't be what it seemed, not his Max with that dipshit.

Part five

In his living room, Joey stared at his portrait of Annie intently. No her eyes weren't that colour exactly. Holding the wet paintbrush in his prehensile tail Joey looked through his hand mirror and adjusted the darkness of the eye colour.

"Joey mate!" Alec yelled, coming in through the back door. Alec walked down the hall looking for Joey.

Joey quickly put the canvas down.

Alec walked into the living room. "Gidday Housemate!" Alec announced.

"Housemate?" Joey was stunned. Bloody hell how could he make it up with Annie and get his leg over if 494 was around?

"Yeah mate." Alec confirmed, shrugging at the incredibility of it all. "I need to shack up with you for a bit, till the filths off my back. It turns out my clone was an outback serial killer yeah."

"Righto." Joey said coolly.

"Yeah. Where's your telly hey?" Alec looked round with a sinking feeling. Everything in this house was bog standard, but surely there was a bleeding television.

"No telly." Joey took a pile of magazines from the book shelf, and hit Alec on the head with them. "Magazines, you can read."

"What are we living in, the Dreamtime, the landing of the First bloody Fleet? Mate I need the idiot box hey. How else can we watch the footy?"

Joey shook his head. No, no one cared about getting Joey a telly. Max had always said she'd look into it lazy cow. But Max was always occupied trying to find a cure for Logan's virus so she could shag him or helping out other freaks escape from Black, or getting papers so X5 and X6s could emigrate across the Tasman to New Zealand. Selfish bloody moll Joey thought bitterly.

"No worries." Alec reached for his cell phone. Why the police had taken his wallet but not his cell phone, Alec would never know. "I know a mate who owes me a favour."

Alec stood with his ear against the phone. "Come on Biggo where are you mate?" Biggo had been the second transgenic Alec had been trying to get hold of all yesterday.

Alec noticed Joey trying hard not to look at a painting in the corner of the room. Alec therefore glanced at it curiously, despite Joshua's best efforts to stand in front of it.

"What that mate? A new painting, beaut?

"Um.." Joey's ears twitched with irritation. All this time being by himself and now Joey had bloody company?

" Joey number 320?" Alec teased.

"Um..." Joey sighed ruefully and stepped aside. "Annie."

Alec immediately hung up. "Annie?"

"Annie. Yes." Joey nodded.

"Who the bloody hell is Annie?" Alec asked alarmed. Christ had the stupid wallaby freak being speaking to an ordinary, putting them all in danger?

Joey laughed nervously. "Um...the girl who lives down the street in the Housing Commission block."

"Ohmigod mate!" Alec cried in horror. "Listen..."

"Alec, she can't see." Joey cut in quickly, trying to get out of trouble for being a dip shit. "No running, no screaming. It's okay."

"Bloody hell mate." Alec said uncomfortably. "I think we need to have a little chinwag about your friend Annie."

"I don't want to have a little talk." Joey said petulantly. "I know I have to lay low. I'm tired of laying low, Alec."

Part Six

Outside Paddy's market, Black's car pulled to a stop. Inside, Black sat in the driver's seat and Wombat lay across the back seat.

"Oi Wombat." Black got his attention. Wombat sat up looking nervous again. He didn't trust Black not really. "Righto, do you see that fence?"

Black indicated a fence behind the car with a sign on it saying "SYDNEY CITY COUNCIL VEHICLES ONLY "

"All you have to do is get over it, and you'll be safe yeah." Black lied though his back teeth.

"Righto." Wombat nodded.

"You have to watch out for enemy soldiers but, 'cause if they see you, they will try to kill you. They'll be wearing helmets, carrying guns, and they'll have badges that say "New South Wales Police."

Wombat repeated that to himself. What kind of drongo did Black think Wombat was for Christ's sake? "New South Wales Police."

"That's right. Good luck hey." Black crossed his fingers as he said that.

"Ta yeah." Wombat said getting out of the car.

"No worries." Black answered.

Wombat put his hood up and walked slowly towards the fence. Black watched him in the wing mirror of his car.

Passers-by looked at Wombat in pity. That poor bloke had really been hit by the ugly stick hadn't he? A little child pointed at Wombat and her Mum pulled the child's hand down and told her not to be so rude.

Wombat made a sudden dash for steps of Paddy's market.

Bloody hell! That wasn't what Black wanted at all. Black leaned out of the car showing his ID badge and yelled out to two passing policeman walking the beat. "Un-Australian Investigation Unit." Black identified himself. "Get after that freak in the blue hooded fleecy."

The two policemen dashed after Wombat and found themselves jostled and pushed mysteriously by the authority hating Australian crowd. The policemen soon lost track of Wombat in the throng of Paddy's market.

Part Seven

That evening, Alec was watching a Coca-cola Countdown chart on telly. The television was labelled "PROPERTY OF THE ROYAL ALBERT HOSPITAL." Biggo had come round that late afternoon with a telly, apologising for Alec not being able to get hold of Biggo on Saturday.

Biggo was bashful, because he had been away out of cell phone range on a romantic weekend in the Blue Mountains with their fellow X5 Ce's. Alec had laughed good naturedly about it. Shit maybe he and Max could go out with Biggo and Ce's to a Rugby Union game together some time this winter.

Joshua was sitting in an armchair across the room, trying to read a magazine.

"Alec, the idiot box is too loud," Joey whinged.

"Mate, that's the only way to enjoy it. Why don't you come over and have a gander hey? Alec urged him.

Joshua joined Alec and watched the Australian band on screen do yet another bloody cover of **Crowded House's** "_Don't dream it's over_." for a moment.

"Tricks and treats." Joey nodded sagely, thinking uttering patronising bullshit like that made him sound profound instead of subnormal.

"Welcome to the world of attention deficit hey."

The video was interrupted by a screen that said "CHANNEL 7 SPECIAL NEWS BULLETIN."

"This is a Channel seven news break," Announced the female Vietnamese-Australian reporter standing in front of Paddy's Market, in the late afternoon sun.

"A wild cat police strike has brought the city of Sydney almost to a halt this afternoon as thousands of Policemen walked off the job. The reason being they were asked to assist in the apprehension of some kind of 'mutant' without the Un-Australian Investigation Unit filling in the necessary paperwork first.

It started here in Paddy's Market and we have footage of the alleged 'mutant'."

"Oh bloody hell!" groaned Alec, as security footage of Wombat trying on an akubra in Paddy's Market was shown.

"So who are these mutants, why are they according to witnesses looking like they were beaten about the face with an ugly stick, and more importantly do they want our jobs? Why are the police being asked to catch them instead of solving the rising burglary rate round Sydney or is it all linked to the mysterious project 'Manticore' the Republic of Australia Amy is trying to keep hushed up? More on the five thirty news, this is Jodie Nguyen reporting."

At Shank's Pony, Normo and all the messengers were gathered round the telly, watching the five-thirty news completely gobsmacked.

"And after having spent two weeks on the bench recuperating, the Brisbane Lions captain thinks he will be fit enough to play against the Adelaide Crows this Wednesday. In the second most important headlining story tonight the Federal Government has denied all knowledge of "Mutants from Manticore", the seeming cause of the wildcat strike by Sydney police today but so far no one has been able...

"Bloody hell, that's the thing I saw in the sewer last week." Sketcho shook Shazza's shoulder accusingly, forcing her to look at the screen. "And you said **I** was probably bloody stoned, you junkie moll."

Normo muttered and shook his head as the security footage from Paddy's market showed Wombat knock over a chest freezer of frozen fish and then pick it back up apologetically, without seeming to strain a muscle. "Shit that ugly bastard's been eating his bloody weet-bix."

Max and O. C. exchanged worried glances.

Part Eight

In his flat at the same time, Logan elitist snob that he was, was watching the Australian Broadcasting Corporation version of the news.

"Well yeah." The New South Wales Commissioner of Police said on screen. "If the Un-Australian Investigation Unit is going to have our officers do their dirty work for them we are going to have be financially compensated a lot more. Whatever this project Manticore is we should get more money."

The reporter held his microphone under the commissioner's nose.

"To what do you say, to the allegations that the New South Wales Police Force gets paid heaps, for doing stuff all, already?" the reporter, a young Greek-Australian said bravely.

"I'd say bollocks mate, complete bollocks." The commissioner sneered crossly. "What did you say your name was again lad?"

Logan picked up his cell phone. This was bad news for the woman he loved. He dialled quickly and tried to get hold of Max.

Part Nine

Alec put on his leather jacket and prepared to go round to Max's and O.C.'s place. If he left now, he should get to Max's place when she came home from work. Should Alec get her flowers or did that make him seem too much like a poof? After all Max hadn't said she loved Alec back yet.

"Lay low, Alec." Joey warned him; disturbed by the Channel Seven News as many other Australians were every day.

Alec raised his eyebrows in disbelief. "Lay low? That's rich coming from you mate,"

A pounding on the front door made both transgenics jump.

"Where are ya? Ya lowlife bloody mongrel," came a furious male voice from outside.

Joey and Alec heard Annie's voice from outside on the veranda.

"Bruce shit it's okay bro. don't do this please." Annie begged her brother.

"Nah Annie I'm sorting this arsewipe out." Her brother Bruce told her firmly.

Alec opened the door pretending to be Joey.

Bruce launched into him. The young indigenous Australian male was shaking with fury. "Ya yellow mongrel trying to rape a blind girl. Ya think because you gave me sister six lousy dim sims for tea she was going to give you a cheap root? Spread her legs because you have a French accent?"

Alec shook his head frantically.

Billie strained at her harness, trying to get inside and hump Joey's leg again.

"I know you foreign greasy types. You come near my sister again I'll kill you. Ripping her dress and trying to force yourself on her." Bruce raised his fist. He wanted to smash this bastard to a bloody pulp.

Annie felt the air movement of her brother's fist being raised. "Bruce please darl." The blind girl begged. "The greasy shithead isn't worth it hey. I'm never seeing him again. Please just come home, Mum's put tea on yeah."

"Just stay away from Annie do ya understand?" Bruce commanded furiously. "Or you'll look like a mob of Kangaroos stampeded on your poofter face."

Alec nodded his head up and down rapidly. What the hell had Joey being doing?

Bruce leaned forward so spittle landed on Alec's face. "Bloke's like you make me want to chunder, she was just being nice, she felt sorry for you."

"Bruce please." Annie tugged at his arm. "Let's go home hey?'

Bruce mimed a throat slitting motion at Alec and left. Annie tugged at Billie's harness. Why did Billie like Joey so much? Annie wondered.

Part Ten

At Shanks Pony, everyone was still watching the news.

A picture of Wombat's barcode, as he bent over and looked at a counter displaying souvenir cigarette lighters with women that had their bikini tops disappear when you lit them, flashed up on the television screen.

"You can see it right there…the barcode," The news reader stated in breathless tones. "Unconfirmed reports suggest these tattoos were used to keep track of the various soldiers involved in the program. Again we ask are they a threat to Australian jobs? Are these mutants working in our community and not being union members?"

How bloody prejudiced thought Max furiously, why she had joined a union the day she had started working at Shank's Pony. If she hadn't belonged to the Posties and Couriers Union, Normo would have given her the sack in the first three months of her employment at Shank's Pony. Max came in constantly to work late hung-over and took every tenth day off for a personal crisis.

Max's pager went off. It was Alec. Max grinned and rang him back immediately.

"How's it going?" Alec asked her.

"Good, you?"

"Good, I take it you've seen the news yeah?"

"Yeah."

"That's not why I'm ringing darl, bad as it is. I need you to get over here to Joey's as soon as you've finished work."

Part eleven

"Well why the fuck would you think that this bloody girl would want to root you just because you deep fried her six Dim Sims' and she wasn't wearing a bra?" Max put her hands on her hips, and shouted down at a sobbing Joey. "Have you gone completely troppo?"

"It said in father's magazines..." Joey sobbed heartbroken on the floor.

"Magazines?" Max looked round puzzled.

Alec seized the magazines Joey had hit him on the head with earlier and looked at them more closely. His eyes widened in illumination at the situation. "Look Maxers." He showed her.

"Oh Christ," Max looked at the covers of the Magazines, "Nineteen Eighties Australian Penthouse, Playboy and Mayfair. People's Post?"

She shook Joey roughly. "You dip shit Joey, those letters to the editor were never real and because of Australia's weird censor ship laws of the time they airbrushed the photos of the chicks' rude bits."

Joey sobbed desolately. "Joey liked her. Love is meant to be grouse yeah?"

"You would have got a hell of a fright if you had gone down on her." Max comforted him more gently.

Joey sobbed in her arms and Max felt his pendant brush against her breasts. She looked at it casually, patting the sobbing freak on the back soothingly.

Max pushed Joey away abruptly and looked at the pendant more closely. It had the Familiar's symbol engraved upon it.

"Joey where the hell did you get this?" Max exclaimed excitedly. She pulled it off him.

"Father gave it to me." Joey wiped his eyes and sat up.

Max removed one of her bike gloves and compared the symbol on her palm to the one on the pendant. They matched exactly.

"Stone the crows." She whistled.

Part twelve.

Max crept guiltily into Logan's apartment. She went over to his the whiteboard he had set up and hung the pendant in the corner. She took a whiteboard marker and circled the pendant drawing a connecting arrow between the words "SANDEMAN" and "BREEDING CULT."

The lights turned on with an ominous click and the computer monitor glowed on.

Max turned fluidly to find Logan sitting at the kitchen table, having just turned back on the lights. He looked off his face. A bottle of Pre Pulse Glenfidditch whiskey was on the table beside him.

"Why good evening, how are you Maxers?" Logan asked her drunkenly.

"Good, you?"

"Good." Logan finished his glass.

"The lights were out. I didn't know you were home yeah." Max apologised.

"'Cause if you did, you wouldn't have come, hey?" Logan told her grimly.

"I found this around Joshua's neck yeah. He said Father gave it to him. It's the same symbol the breeding cult uses." Max pointed to the whiteboard. She'd never seen Logan shit faced before.

"So Sandeman is one of Black's cult loonies, yeah? Bugger me senseless." Logan poured himself another drink.

"Logo, there's a connection between the breeding cult and Manticore." Max began nervously.

Logan stood up and started walking toward Max.

""I should do an Eyes Only hack, hey? I mean, this is a big news day. In case you hadn't noticed, I tried paging you. Wanted to talk to you, suppose you were busy but."

"Well yeah I was working yeah. I was delivering packages round Sydney all bloody day, a pigeon in George Street shat in my bloody yogurt tub during my lunch break and Normo wanted me to fill in an insurance form during my smoko time because some up herself bitch got her peal necklace lost on my route. I'm going hey. I just thought you would want to know."

Max turned to leave, but Logan rushed over and obstructed her. Max tried several times to go around him, but each time he blocked her.

"Give it a bloody rest Logo." Max said frightened. Jesus, Joey had already started drinking through the slab of tinnies that Alec had bought over to his house, there would be no miraculous blood transfusion this time.

She didn't know where Alec was. He had stalked off into the night, when Max had told him she was going over to Logan's.

"I could keep you here all bloody night." Logo giggled

"Come on, Logo mate." Max reasoned.

"At least 'til I drop dead as a door post."

"I've said everything I needed to say yeah." Max rolled her eyes.

"I don't think so. I think there's something else." Logo's voice broke, and he spilled his drink down his shirt. "Shit."

"Logo..."

Logan leaned in close accusingly, "Or is it someone else?"

"What?" Max was baffled. There had never been anyone else while she was going out with Logo, what the fuck was the pisshead on about?

"I needed to talk to you, so I came by your unit...and I saw him leaving." Logo poured himself more whiskey.

Max didn't say anything, just stared at him in contempt, folding her arms. What a fucking creepy stalker. Why hadn't Logo come up to them and attempted to knock Alec out or something like a real bloke? Logo was a complete bloody poofter.

"I…I mean, if I've got it wrong, just say so." Logan said in a pleading tone.

Max said nothing, speechless with growing fury. Christ was she going to have to take out an Apprehended Violence Order against Logo in future to stop him stalking her?

Logan made one last entreaty. "Tell me it's not true hey."

"Well Christ Logan," Max spat at him. "You saw Alec and me with our tongues down each others throats pashing, how thick can you be? You're dumped Logo, rack off!"

Max walked briskly around him and left his apartment without a backwards glance. To think Max had wasted two years of her life cracking on to that useless wanker.

Logan stumbled off to his toilet to spew up.

Part thirteen

On the top of the ruined, abandoned, graffiti covered Sydney Opera House a lone female figure sat. Max contemplated the container ship, yacht and ferry lights as they moved slowly across Darling Harbour. It all looked so peaceful and beautiful.

Max heard foot steps behind her.

"Arrgh shit!" Alec gasped, as he slid on the sharp slope of the Opera House's roof. He regained his balance and stood beside her hands in his pockets, trying not to look like he had just made a complete dickhead of himself five seconds ago.

"Evening Maxers. Thought I'd find you here hey." Alec stated, the autumn breeze ruffling his hair.

"I come here to be alone yeah." Max looked up at him smiling.

"Yeah, I know, but considering that we shagged last night, and I stayed till the morning doesn't that make you my girlfriend now?" Alec gazed back at her adoringly.

Max chuckled. "Sit down, you drongo, before you fall in the harbour."

Alec sat down and put his arm round her. Max rested her head on his shoulder comfortably.

"So, you got any deep thoughts you want to share yeah?" Alec smirked, "Any, um, profound realizations about bloody life Maxers?"

"Yeah, love's meant to be grouse." Max lifted her mouth to Alec's lovingly. For the longest time the two transgenics pashed happily, as the light from the moon and the stars in the Southern Cross twinkled down on them in approval.

Glossary

_Vomit terms_

Chunder , spew

_Food_

Tea: another word for dinner sometimes

Dim Sims: like Asian enchilada's /samousa's

Pudding: another word for desert

Weet-bix: breakfast cereal

_Drink_

Slab of tinnies: A carton of beer.

_Clothing_

Posh Frock: fancy dress

Akubra: a leather hat that Australian stockmen (cowboys) wear

_Terms I never got round to explaining before_

Moll: ho slut

Rep: Representative

Rude bits: genitals' (can you work out nothing in context?)

Dreamtime: Indigenous Australian term referring to physical creation of Australia ie rocks and mountains

First Fleet: What the ships that brought the first British Convicts to New South Wales in 1789 were called.

_AN: If that was confusing for you American readers have a think about the rest of us English speakers around the world we know what you mean. But we can speak in code hahahha (evil sinister laugh)._

Thank you for reading. Hope you liked it.


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